Privacy Policy
Cost of Solar PRIVACY STATEMENT
This privacy statement covers the site www.costofsolar.com (“Cost of Solar”, “COS”, “we” or “us”). Because this web site wants to demonstrate its commitment to our users’ privacy, it has agreed to disclose its information practices: What personally identifiable information COS collects, what personally identifiable information third parties collect through the Web site, what organization collects the information, how COS uses the information, with whom COS may share user information, what choices are available to users regarding collection, use and distribution of the information, what types of security procedures are in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of information under COS control, and how users can correct any inaccuracies in the information.
If users have questions or concerns regarding this statement, they should first contact COS Customer Support by email at info@costofsolar.com or by phone at 855-596-9567.
Information Collection and Use
COS is the sole owner of the information collected on costofsolar.com. COS collects information from our users at several different points on our Web site.
Registration
In order to use some features of this Web site, a user must first complete the registration form. During registration a user is required to provide contact information (such as name and email address) as well as certain information regarding a user’s home and energy usage. We may use this information to contact the user, via email, direct mail or telephone, about services on our site for which he has expressed interest. We may provide this contact information to solar retailers and other third party service providers who can help fulfill your information/service request.
Third Party Communications
As stated above, we may provide your contact information to solar retailers and other third party service providers who can help fulfill your information/service request. Accordingly, these third parties may directly contact you (via email, direct marketing, or telemarketing) about (i) your information/service requests through this website and/or (ii) their own products and services. Please see our Opt-out section for how to opt out of receiving these communications.
Profile
We store information that we collect through cookies and log files to create a profile of our users. A profile is stored information that we keep on individual users detailing their solar energy system preferences. Consequently, collected information is tied to the user’s personally identifiable information to provide the quote service and improve the content of the site for the user. This profile is used to tailor a user’s service from our Web site and may be used to direct pertinent COS marketing promotions to them. We may share your profile with third party service providers in order to enhance your user experience and our services.
Cookie Disclosure
What’s a cookie?
A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s computer tied to information about the user. Usage of a cookie is in no way linked to any personally identifiable information while on our site. We use both session ID cookies and persistent cookies. For the session ID cookie, once users close the browser, the cookie simply terminates. A persistent cookie is a small text file stored on the user’s hard drive for an extended period of time.
Why do we use cookies?
COS uses cookies to restore users to a previous session after leaving the site. By setting a cookie on our site, we are able to save the information and settings provided by the user in an earlier session even if they have not registered.
Deleting cookies
If you have not registered with COS, deleting cookies means that you may be unable to restore information from a previous session. There are a number of software and shareware programs available that are designed to periodically purge cookie files from your hard disk. We do not recommend these applications and, as such, cannot address any resulting support issues that may be related to the use of these programs.
Log Files
Like most standard Web site servers we use log files. This includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/ time stamp, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement in the aggregate, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses, etc. are not linked to personally identifiable information.
Communications from the Site
Special Offers and Updates
We send users email notifications of various events relating to the use of COS. Established members will occasionally receive information on products, services, special deals, and/or a newsletter. During the sign up process, we do present the option note to receive these types of communications. Please see the Choice and Opt-out sections.
If a user wishes to subscribe to our emails, we ask for contact information such as name and email address. Out of respect for our users, we provide a way to unsubscribe from/opt-out of these communications in each message we send.
Customer Service
We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regards to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone, in accordance with the user’s wishes.
Sharing
Legal Disclaimer
Though we make every effort to preserve user privacy, we may need to disclose personal information when required by law wherein we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, a court order or legal process served on our Web site.
Sharing of Information
We do not sell or otherwise disclose information about our website visitors, except as described here. We may share the information you provide among our solar installers and other third party service providers in order to help fulfill your information/service request. Please note that these third parties with whom we share your information may (i) use such personal information for their own purposes (including commercial purposes) as set forth in their respective privacy policies or (ii) may disclose or dispose of your information to other third parties in the course of their own business. You may opt out of this use by contacting these third parties directly. The opt-out terms for these third parties will be governed by their respective privacy policies. In addition, we may disclose information about you (i) when we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to prevent physical harm or financial loss or in connection with an investigation of suspected or actual illegal activity or (ii) if this is necessary to protect the vital interests of the a person.
Business Transitions
In the event COS goes through a business transition, such as a merger, being acquired by another company, or selling a portion of its assets, users’ personal information will, in most instances, be a part of the assets transferred. Users will be notified via info@costofsolar.com or via a prominent notice on our Web site for 30 days prior to a change of ownership or control of their personal information. If as a result of the business transition, the users’ personally identifiable information will be used in a manner different from that stated at the time of collection they will be given choice consistent with our notification of changes section.
Choice/Opt-out
Our users are given the opportunity to ‘opt-out’ of having their information used for purposes not directly related to our site at the point where we ask for information. For example, our order form has an ‘opt-out’ mechanism so users who buy a product from us, but don’t want any marketing material, can keep their email address off of our lists. Users who no longer wish to receive our emails and/or promotional communications may opt-out of receiving these communications by replying to the email with “Remove” in the subject line or by emailing us at info@costofsolar.com. Alternatively the user may contact us at 855-596-9567.
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info@costofsolar.com
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at: Grid Freedom, Inc., 2430 RT 34 Suite, 202 Manasquan, NJ 08736 to opt-out.
The most immediate method is to email us at info@costofsolar.com. Please remember to include the email address or contact number that you would like to have removed.
Upon your request, we can (i) provide You with a list of all the companies to whom we have provided your contact information pursuant to this website and (ii) provide You the categories of information shared with the third parties. You may opt-out from having your personal information shared with or provided to third parties, and you may request the list referenced above, by sending us an email given at the end of this policy. In addition, please note that the list referenced above is free to the consumer; however, we are only required by law to respond to one request per year.
If You receive a commercial email from one of our third parties, You may be able to unsubscribe by following the instructions at the bottom of each email. If You want to opt-out from all communications from these third parties, You may opt out of this use by contacting these third parties directly.
SPECIAL NOTICE TO CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS
California residents may also take advantage of the following rights:
You may request, up to two times each year, that we disclose to you the categories and specific pieces of personal information that we have collected about you, the categories of sources from which your personal information is collected, the business or commercial purpose for collecting your personal information, the categories of personal information that we disclosed for a business purpose, any categories of personal information that we sold about you, the categories of third parties with whom we have shared your personal information, and the business or commercial purpose for selling your personal information, if applicable.
You may request that we delete any personal information that we have collected from or about you. Note that there are some reasons we will not be able to fully address your request, such as if we need to complete a transaction for you, to detect and protect against fraudulent and illegal activity, to exercise our rights, or to comply with a legal obligation.
You may request to opt out of HomeSolarAnswers.COM sale of your personal information to third parties, and to our affiliated companies that do not share the same brand name, for their direct marketing purposes. This means that, if you opt out, going forward, we will not share your information with such third parties to use for their purposes unless you later direct us to do so.
To effect the opt out, please click on the Do Not Sell My Personal Information link on our website footer or contact us at +1-855-596-9567.
To take advantage of your access and deletion rights, please click here or contact us at +1-855-596-9567. For verification purposes, please provide your name, address, telephone number and email address. Further information may be required for verification. We value your privacy and will not discriminate in response to your exercise of your privacy rights. We will respond to your access and deletion requests within 45 days of receipt of your request, after proper verification, unless we need additional time, in which case we will let you know. We will respond to your opt of sale requests as soon as reasonably possible.
For purposes of compliance with the California Consumer Privacy Act, in addition to the further details as described throughout this Privacy Policy, we make the following disclosures:
We collect the following categories of personal information: Identifiers/Contact Information (like your transaction history and service usage), Commercial information, Internet or other electronic network activity information, geolocation, visual and audio information, and profiles and inferences drawn from the above.
We sell the following categories of personal information: Identifiers/Contact Information, Internet or other electronic network activity information, and inferences drawn from the above. We have sold these categories of information in the preceding 12 months.
We disclose the following categories of personal information for a business or commercial purpose: Identifiers/Contact Information, Commercial information, Internet or other electronic network activity information, geolocation, visual and audio information, and inferences drawn from above
Links
This Web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we, info@costofsolar.com, are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every Web site that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this Web site.
Security
This Web site takes every precaution to protect our users’ information. When users submit sensitive information via the Web site, their information is protected both online and off-line. When our registration/order form asks users to enter sensitive information (such as credit card number and/or social security number), that information is encrypted and is protected with the best encryption software in the industry – SSL. While on a secure page, such as our order form, the lock icon on the bottom of Web browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer becomes locked, as opposed to un-locked, or open, when users are just ’surfing’. To learn more about SSL, visit VeriSign. While we use SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online, we also do everything in our power to protect user-information off-line. All of our users’ information, not just the sensitive information mentioned above, is restricted in our offices. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, our billing clerk or a customer service representative) are granted access to personally identifiable information. Our employees must use password-protected screen-savers when they leave their desk. When they return, they must re-enter their passwords to re-gain access to user information. Furthermore, ALL employees are kept up-to-date on our security and privacy practices. Every quarter, as well as any time new policies are added; our employees are notified and/or reminded about the importance we place on privacy, and what they can do to ensure our users’ information is protected. Finally, the servers that store personally identifiable information are in a secure environment in a locked facility. If users have any questions about the security at our Web site, users can send an email to info@costofsolar.com.
Correcting/Updating/Deleting/Deactivating Personal Information
If a user’s personally identifiable information changes (such as zip code, phone, email or postal address), or if a user no longer desires our service, we provide a way to correct, update or delete/deactivate users’ personally identifiable information. This can be done by emailing our Customer Support at info@costofsolar.com. Or, contact us by telephone or postal mail at the contact information listed below.
Notification of Changes
If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we deem appropriate so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. We will use information in accordance with the privacy policy under which the information was collected.
In some cases where we post a notice we will also email users, who have opted to receive communications from us, notifying them of the changes in our privacy practices.
Contact Information
If users have any questions or suggestions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us at:
Phone: 855-596-9567
Email: info@costofsolar.com
Postal Address: Grid Freedom, Inc., 2430 RT 34 Suite, 202 Manasquan, NJ 08736
Attn: COS Customer Support
Support Department: info@costofsolar.com
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